University of Arizona fountain, Tucson, Ariz.

   One of the focal points of the project, four Carnelian granite fountains, not only incorporates the agelessness of the rock itself … but speaks to a vision of the school dating back to its founding in the 1880s.
   Additionally, granite pavers in the same Carnelian granite allow donors to the project to be recognized and, as part of a memorial walkway, not only celebrate significant aspects of the school’s past, but also leave space for future generations to write their own history.
   Anne Lopez, program coordinator for the University of Arizona Alumni Association, explains the plaza adjoins the school’s main administration building and the recently renovated student union. Aas a gift to their alma mater, volunteers first conceived the idea in 1999.
   “This is absolutely the crossroads of the campus,” she says. “The student union was reconstructed in 2000-2002, and even though they put everything back the way it was, it was a lot of bare dirt. People really tried, but it was a decidedly unlovely portion of the campus.”
   To rectify that, the alumni association and the university began by sending out a request for proposal (RFP) nationwide. Among the three finalists chosen for interviews was San Francisco-based Hargreaves Associates.
   Both Lopez and Megan Mann, one of the designers on the project (George Hargreaves served as design director, and Mary Margaret Jones was principal-in-charge), agree the firm was chosen because of its concept for use of the space.
   “They wanted a plaza that would represent the heart of campus, the crossroads,” says Mann. “This is an area highly active in terms of student life, and they wanted useable open public space that would provide shade – but also be a spot where big groups could congregate, concerts would be performed, that sort of thing.”
   “Their idea was basically founded on something that was said at the inception of the first building on campus in 1884,” says Lopez. “One of the founders said that he envisioned times to come where the school featured wide verandas, silvery fountains and shady groves. What we got totally embodied that, fulfilling the vision.”
   To help turn the design into reality, the university and the alumni association selected Tucson, Ariz.-based Sundt Construction. Thomas Crohurst, who served as Sundt’s project manager for the job, explains the company was hired through a process called construction management at-risk (also called CM-at-risk).
   He explains that the process is similar to the one the university used to choose Hargreaves. It involves the company submitting an explanation of its background, how it would staff the job, and how its officials envision it proceeding.
   “That was all in the form of a written proposal,” Crohurst says. “That was reviewed to short-list firms. Three of us were then selected to be interviewed by the university.”
   As part of Sundt’s contract, that company was then able to offer construction services during the preconstruction phase of the project. Those included reviewing construction details and some pricing for schematic design, the design development and, finally, actual construction documents.
   The company also did some cost-savings analysis.
   “Site-design estimates were initially over the budget, but we were able to work together as a team to get it down by design development to where the cost was acceptable,” Crohurst says. “One of the things that was decided was to go with an alternate type of paver.”
   The selection of the pavers, provided by Nitterhouse Masonry Products of Chambersburg, Pa., had an impact on the color of the project’s major stone feature: four 32’ fountains done in Carnelian granite.
   Hargreaves’ Mann says that while water was definitely part of the vision of the school’s founders, the fountains weren’t necessarily on the alumni association’s original wish list for the project.
   “It was very open-ended,” Mann says. “They had thought they might want a water feature. When we got there and realized water is scarce, but at the same time it has a calming and cooling effect, we thought we could come up with a design that was responsible in using the water, and that it could become a very positive amenity on the plaza.”
   The final length of the fountains was predicated on the proportions of the rest of the plaza, according to Mann. She adds that the Hargreaves team wanted something substantial that would still allow plenty of room for shade trees and seating.
   Initially, plans called for the fountains to be Radiant Red granite.
   “Once we chose the pavers for the plaza and got them into the sun, we thought the Radiant Red was almost too bright,” says Mann. “We wanted a bit more contrast, and we wanted the facets on the stone to read a little bit more. It turned out the darker Carnelian stone (quarried in Milbank, S.D.) made it easier to achieve those things.”
   To create and install the fountains, Hargreaves and Sundt turned to Cold Spring Granite Co. of Cold Spring, Minn. Based on previous experience with the quarrier/fabricator/installer, Mann says the decision was an easy one.
   “We knew they could work with us to get the engineering right so we could use the cantilever designs and get the stone placement as precise as possible,” she says.
   Cold Spring Granite officials agree that the project required complete utilization of its design and manufacturing capabilities to create the four fountains: Each one is made up of eight segments, 4’ X 6’ X 2,’ and cantilevered at different angles from 38° to 68°. Each segment weighs approximately 8,000 lbs.
   Cold Spring Granite became involved early enough in the project to participate in the design development phase, allowing the company to offer value engineering by matching design requirements with the best utilization of its manufacturing capabilities.
   Dan Rea, Cold Spring Granite’s senior vice president of commercial sales, says that works of art, such as the Alumni Plaza fountains, commonly pose a unique set of challenges due to their complexity of design. In this project, the issue was complex geometry spanning multiple pieces.
   “When Cold Spring Granite received the electronic CAD data, our drafting department staff worked side-by-side with the company’s CAD/CNC technician,” he says. “With Integrity Design Inc.’s 3D Solid Modeling in our CAD applications, we were able to easily visually communicate all issues surrounding the project with everyone in the supply chain from artist to plant fabrication personnel.”
   The data was also used in preparing information for use in fabrication, including patterns for handwork and CNC machines, guiding the proper sawing, shaping each stone and, ultimately, the proper match panel-to-panel.
   However, the job involved even more than simply fabricating the segments to strict +/- 1/32” tolerances in all direction with 1/8” joints between pieces.
   “The anchors were 26” long X 5/8” diameter,” says Rea. “All the pieces were pre-fit in our Cold Spring, Minn., plant to ensure the pieces fit together. In addition, we worked with the White Bear Lake, Minn., office of Larson Engineering, and the St. Paul, Minn.-based Stork Twin City Testing Corp., on anchor placement and anchor testing.”
   The fabricator also worked with the architects and project engineers to develop the concrete sub-structure and stone-anchoring system to support the weight of the pieces and allow access for the anchoring system.
   “In order to mount them to the beam, they had to have anchor bolts wedged into the granite fountain slabs, stuck down through the concrete beam, and then bolted to the underside of the concrete beam,” explains Sundt’s Crohurst. “Cold Spring gave us a template on where to locate the sleeves. It was unbelievable; we didn’t have any problems with mis-location of anchor bolts and support sleeves.”
   Crohurst says the timely delivery and installation of the fountain slabs by a Cold Spring Granite Construction Services crew was also critical, and the company performed like clockwork. Both he and Rea agree that the delivery sequence utilizing four semi-truckloads was key to getting the slabs on the ground and installed in approximately three weeks.
   “They had two installers here and they did an excellent job,” says Crohurst. “They were scheduled so that one truck was on the job where the slabs were lifted off with a crane and set in place. Then, another truck would show up.”
   The fountains, featuring a polished finish, are dedicated to the University of Arizona mission: to discover, to educate, to serve and to inspire. However, they are not the only use of the Carnelian granite on the site.
   “There’s also a memorial walkway going through the center of the plaza,” says the alumni association’s Lopez. “Currently, there are 21 large pavers that have been engraved with what we thought, and our alumni thought, were facts of historical significance for the university.”
   Those include how the school’s colors were chosen, how the school’s Wildcat mascot was selected and named, and how the plaza came into being. The pavers, each measuring 2’ X 6’ with a thermal finish, were installed by Tucson.-based Cox Masonry Inc.
   That company’s Jim Cox says his firm was chosen using the same CM-at-risk process used in the selection of Sundt as the general contractor. Cox Masonry has its own history with the university; the company celebrated its own centennial in Tucson last year, and the firm has worked on the school’s building projects in the past 100 years.
   “We feel connected to the university because our family has been working there for a long time,” acknowledges Jim Cox.
   He explains that the installation of more than 50,000 ft² of concrete pavers, the Carnelian pavers in the walkway, and other 1’9” X 3’ Carnelian pavers honoring donors to the project is a bit out of the ordinary for his firm, which typically handles commercial masonry jobs.
   “We’ve done pavers in the past, but not to the scale of this project,” Cox says.
   He adds that the use of the pavers is a cost-effective alternative to concrete for a project of this size. The actual installation involved laying them on a level bed of sand, a method often used in the Tucson area and one that allows some drainage to go back into the ground.
   “You have to shoot your grades and your elevations and keep everything on a plane for drainage and keep it a flat-looking surface,” Cox says. “You compact it to a subgrade and then you’ve got an inch +/- as a setting bed. If you compact it pretty good, it’s not going to settle as fast as you’d think it would.”
   He adds that some of the pavers on a terrace near the administration building and some steps veneered with the paver material were set in mortar, but it was a small percentage of the job.
   Tucson-based Proios Sandblasting and Painting handled the actual marking of the Carnelian pavers after the stone was in place.
   Cox’s crew, which numbered as many as 20 people, began its work at the end of June, and then was pulled off the project for approximately a month–and-a-half so that some of the other features could be installed. Cox Masonry ended up working until the project’s absolute deadline – Oct. 28, 2004 –  which was the start of the university’s homecoming celebration.
   Both the alumni association’s Lopez and Sundt’s Crohurst agree it was a tight squeak to get the job done in time.
   “They were adjusting the fountains and taking down the fence even as we were setting up tables,” says Lopez. “I was holding my breath.”
   Crohurst says a two-month delay in starting the project –originally scheduled to take a year – and some major changes ordered with another part of the job in August did make it nip-and-tuck right up to the end.
   “We had people working three shifts at some points,” he says. “Because the administration building is just north of the plaza, we were getting calls every day asking if we thought we’d make it. Thanks to people like Cold Spring and Cox and a couple other subcontractors we had on the job, we did – but just by the skin of our teeth.”
   Despite the close finish, the plaza has been well received by the campus community. Cox has been called back to do some additional cosmetic and safety work at the site, and to expand the area for donor pavers.
   Lopez says students were all over the area as soon as the fences came down the day of homecoming, and its use remains heavy.
   “There isn’t a time that I go over there that kids aren’t sitting on the grass, sitting on the hill and sitting on the benches between the fountains,” she says. “The fountains are really lovely because, when it’s hot, the overspray acts like an evaporative cooler. The people in our part of the country know how much that means. It’s nothing short of amazing.”

Client: University of Arizona Alumni Association, Tucson, Ariz.
Architect: Hargreaves Associates, San Francisco
General Contractor: Sundt Construction, Tucson, Ariz.
Granite Supplier/Fabricator/Fountain Setter: Cold Spring Granite Co., Cold Spring, Minn.
Paver Installer: Cox Masonry Inc., Tucson, Ariz.

This article first appeared in the May 2005 print edition of Stone Business. ©2005 Western Business Media Inc.